Posts tagged ebooks

Isn't it ironic that tiny nuances of tax law can often cause colossal results out in the real world? It's one of those judgments that has rocked Europe after its highest court ruled that e-books aren't actually goods at all. Currently, paper books sold in the EU are subjected to a smaller amount o...

Scribd's monthly subscription includes unlimited access to its library of audio and e-books, and as of today, you can add comics to that list. The service announced that it added over 10,000 comic books for leisurely reading, and the more visually striking reading material will be included in the ...

If there was ever a world with a deep, rich history behind it, it's Norrath. But EverQuest Next is giving its own spin to the lore. If you're tired of feeling left out and clueless in conversations about the Dragon War because you haven't had time to read through the 11 lore e-books that have been ...

If you've been following the protracted war between Amazon and Hachette, you know that Amazon's been stymieing sales of certain books by making it impossible to pre-order them, and pushing back delivery of others all over a e-book contract dispute. The situation isn't really even about Hachette an...

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that libraries have the right to digitize books and distribute them to dedicated reading terminals without first obtaining the publisher's permission. The decision rests on exceptions built into the EU Copyright Directive for reproducing ...

Speed-reading apps seem like the new weather apps. There are tons of different examples to choose from and they tout benefits that range from better memory retention to more free time and even healthier, shinier hair (one of those may not be totally true). So, have you used one to take your readin...

Unless you've been living in a book-free cave, you may have heard that retail giant Amazon and book publisher Hachette are having a little tiff. It's all about digital versions of books -- so-called e-books -- and it boils down to this: Amazon wants to sell most of them for $10, and Hachette wants...

With subscription plans for music having taken hold in recent years, Amazon figured it might as well get in on the action and roll out a similar service for e-books. Earlier today, the online retailing giant announced Kindle Unlimited, a new service that lets users read anything and everything the...

Ever heard of Kindle Unlimited? Us either, at least not until now. Originally spotted by kboards, a forum site that welcomes Kindle chatter, this previously unknown service appears to be an upcoming all-you-can-read subscription service from Amazon. For $9.99 monthly, as described by the image abo...

France's "anti-Amazon" law prohibiting free shipping and discounts has now gone into effect, and Amazon quickly announced that it had conformed -- technically. Though it no longer ships books for free, it only charges 0.01 euro, conforming to the letter if not the spirit of the law (French Prime m...

Despite sounding like a rogue militant organization from G.I. Joe, Hachette is actually a book publishing group. Tame as that may sound, Hachette is currently engaged in a high-stakes game of Chicken with a juggernaut in the book sales world: Amazon. It's all part of a long-running dispute between...

If you head over to iTunes and look for book pre-orders at $9.99 or less, you may notice something strange: they're all Hachette titles. That's no coincidence -- Amazon is delaying shipment on Hachette books right now, a negotiating tactic it calls an "essential business practice." Authors and pub...

It's a hulking behemoth now, but let's not forget that Amazon got its start peddling books. It never really forgot those roots, either: somewhere along the way it built its own e-reading platform and snapped up a pricey purveyor of audiobooks. Now the e-commerce titan is trying to blur the lines b...

While Amazon is caught up in an e-book pricing dispute with one of the world's biggest publishers, Walmart is making hay. As the internet retailer continues to squeeze Hachette for better pricing on e-books by limiting the amount of printed books it orders, which include titles from J.K Rowling an...

Out of the five biggest publishers, HarperCollins was the first one that understood the potential of Nextflix-esque services for e-books like Scribd and Oyster. Simon & Schuster seems to have caught on, though, because it's just agreed to make roughly 10,000 of its digital tomes -- published m...

Sure, you've read Lord of the Flies, but have you ever danced to it? Well, now you can. Researchers have created a way to digitally compose songs using the text from books. To make the jams, a computer program reads the book, applying sentiment analysis (the same thing marketers use to gauge emoti...

Pretty soon Humble Bundle is going to run out of new things to sell. The company has already conquered video games, ebooks, comedy albums and briefly dabbled in film, now the pay-what-you-want kings are turning its sights on comic books. Starting at 11AM PT today you can get a fine collection of d...

EverQuest Next has taken a novel approach to providing fans with lore by publishing a series of ebook novellas, each focusing on a different facet of the EQN incarnation of the world of Norrath. The latest installment in this series, titled Prison of Fire, released today, and it centers on Neria N...

Apple has just introduced a new way for you to buy gifts for friends and relatives. The iBooks Store has added the ability to give iBooks to those on your shopping list. It's been possible to send apps to others as gifts since 2010, and music or videos from the iTunes Store for many years.
Buying...

As someone who has gone through the fun of self-publishing e-books for use on everything from the Amazon Kindle to Apple's iBooks, I know what a pain in the neck it can be to get everything formatted and set up properly for publishing. Even Apple's iBooks Author has limitations once you've actuall...